Members of the Dr Fredrick Fasehun faction of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) have appointed Comrades Dare Adesope and Odunayo Ogunmoye as President and Vice President of the association respectively.
The action, it was learnt, was taken to reject the earlier executives announced by Dr Fasehun last October.
The aggrieved members, who carried various placards with inscriptions like “Dr Fasehun is no more our leader, O.P.C is tired of bad leadership”, “Dr Fasehun is misleading the Yoruba race, O.P.C must move forward, enough of this stagnancy”, “Give us comrade Dare Adesope as our president, a lot of souls are being wasted without compensation”, “Enough of this slavery, Dr Fasehun has no right to expel any member of O.P.C”, among others, accused the founder of the group of hand-picking executive members, financial misappropriation, lack of rule of law, failure to keep to promises among others.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was said to have happened two weeks ago, when one of Fasehun’s executive member, allegedly ordered the shooting of some members which led to the wounding of one Biodun Oyepeju.
Speaking to the press in Ado Ekiti yesterday, Comrade Ajayi Edward Olusola, the new Director of Publicity of the OPC reiterated the fact that Fasehun remains the founder and should function only in that capacity.
He said the reason for a new leadership was due to the need for young, energetic, reliable and credible individuals to take over from Fasehun who is over 80 and needs to hand over the baton to the younger generation.
Olusola accused Fasehun of financial misappropriation, stating that the national secretariat’s land was bought by a former governor of Lagos State and ever since, the land has remained under development and uncompleted. ‘’ For an association of over 20 years, nobody knows where the financial account of O.P.C is,” he said.
He described the leadership style as one man government who never cared for the members and he is autocratic in his dealings with everyone which is the opposite of what he preaches as a self-acclaimed democrat.
“Once you oppose the decision of Baba, he‘ll say you are expelled. There was never a time when Baba slept, woke up and say let me go and visit the family of members that lost their lives,” he alleged.
Olusola called on the nation to stop dealings with Fasehun as he is no more the president of the OPC but the founder.
Those who attended the press conference included National leader, Alhaji Bature Gbada, former Personal Assistant to Dr Fasehun, Alhaji Adeyemi Taofeek, the Ekiti State OPC coordinator, Dele Olorunfemi and his counterparts from Osun, Ogun, Ondo and Kogi.
Reacting to the news of his sack, Fasheun described Adesope and others as jokers and renegades.
“Nigerians should not take Adesope and his supporters serious. They have been expelled from OPC since December last year. Is it not funny, how can a tenant say he want to eject his landlord? It is not possible. I remain OPC leader as long as I’m alive.
“Adesope and his co-travellers are greedy fellows who want to use OPC as an instrument of harassment and extortion,and when reports of their nefarious activities were brought to our notice, a panel was set up to investigate them, and they were found guilty, and consequently they were expelled from the organisation,” he said.
Urging the public not to take Adesope serious, Fasheun said, “I urge these impostors to stop parading themselves as OPC members, and if they fail to do so we are going to inform relevant security agencies about their illegal activities’’ (News Express, Saturday Sun).